My experience was for a driver fitting, indoors at a screen with Trackman. Couldn't be happier with the process, tried lots of heads, all stiff shafts and ended up with a club that was tipped 1" to stiffen up which compensated for my action through the ball. The fitter was a coach I have seen in the past and he even gave me a mini lesson while I was there. Well worth it, as I nw feel so much more confident when I am standing on the tee with the big stick.....as the OP said, I have a feeling now that fitting is as much about being confident that swinging correctly will certainly have the desired result and you can step up to the ball, confident that the club will work as required if the Indian is swinging it as planned, regardless of the type of stance you have.

Did you have any preconceived idea as to what brand club you may want, or end up with?

Did you have any preconceived idea as to what brand club you may want, or end up with?

How did the data compare to which club you felt was better to hit?

I went in without any preconceived thoughts on what driver I wanted to walk away with. That said, I thought I would like the Cally XR16.

Tried Calley XR16, Ping G30, Mizzy JPX900 (horrible sounding club and shite numbers anyway), Cobra F7+ and TM M1 & M2. Turns out with my swing I had a slightly downward swing at impact and was getting a lot of spin with most clubs. The coach who I have seen before and was doing the fitting gave me a few pointers and we got it almost neutral and at a point where I was still comfortable swinging. Got it down to the G30 and the F7+......in the end the spin numbers and the sound/feel of the F7+ was easily the winner.

Turns out it was cheapest of all the drivers that I tried. Like I said I am 100% happy with the process and the club that I have ended up with. Feel confident when I stand over the drive and I know that I can either swing within myself or give it a good rip with good results. If it is a bad drive, I also know it was me and not the club.

My feedback is that the 8 or so fitters I've spoken to showed me that the industry is a smoke and mirrors exercise that oversells, overpromises and under-delivers, especially when compared to other options.

I see that as a symptom of the fact that club fitting often (and in my view rightly) plays a very distant second fiddle to golf instruction given by PGA pros; followed by people hitting lots of golf balls and playing more golf. Of course it is just my view that when people work out what actually leads to improvement, club fitting becomes a bit of hard sell.

The OP asked for people to share their experiences .... not all experiences are the same. Pretty sure I mentioned some repeated issues with long irons somewhere along the line .....

The OP asked you to give feedback on the fitting, not your stilted view of fittings after 8 or so sessions with multiple fitters who have shown you that it is all smoke and mirrors. If you want to start a thread about that, go ahead, but I would like to actually hear how and why the fitting sessions have lead you to this point.

From all of these fittings, have you never once come away with a driver, iron set or putter that you feel gives you lots of confidence when you move onto all of that practice and playing?

Hey 2P, are these 'fitters' PGA members or just 'sales peeps' in a retail store?

100%.

As the OP, my thought was to get a conversation started and collect some feedback / experiences that others could use to evaluate whether club fitting was something that would help them. I know I looked around on here for info about it before I embarked on the process.

Anyone who thinks a club fitting will magically produce fantastic shots is probably a little naive. Same too anyone who thinks the newest shiny heavily marketed driver is going to magically make them bomb 300m drives. But, as part of the process of improvement, hitting the wrong flex shafts or wrong style of club, can't be good for someone looking to improve. But, once those things are sorted, it's the lessons, practice and use program that is needed.

After a while though, many people will find they need to change their gear. Either swing mechanics are stronger, so shaft flex needs changing, or ball striking is better so they can move on from game improvement clubs. Again, having a professional club fitter help with that process has to be better than taking a stab yourself and hoping what the retailer sells you will work.

But, then again, I'm a Hack, so what I think is probably not worth even $0.02.

A mixture of types Hacky. Single manufacturer "fitting centres"; won't mention who for reason you already outlined to Shimonko. PGA Pros that do the basic static length, lie board check type fitting (I think they actually do a good job because they don't generally oversell the outcome and focus on lessons.). I don't count the "retail store" dudes really for good reason.

Based on my own experience chopping it around with lots of different clubs I'm clearly not convinced that shaft/head selection that deals in relatively small change in RPMs, peak heights, carry distances, etc makes any difference to choppers (that includes me) that are capable of supplying several thousand RPM and other variables all by themselves ... but whatever floats someone's boat.

I tend to agree with the general sentiments which 2Putts is explaining.

For a driver you will always have one type of swing - from a tee box that is flat and you try and swing the thing hard. That can be fitted to.

But, for generally most other irons, you're not on a level surface, sometimes you have to swing hard, sometimes you have to swing softer, sometimes you need to hit all sorts of different shots, but the fitting is for one type of full swing from a level surface.

Granted, there is absolutely a place for well fitted irons to be within a close range to a stock shot, and I think it is really pleasing for 76@dorset to gain that much extra confidence from being fitted from a professional. And it makes me wonder if there are other ways for someone to gain extra confidence over the ball with something of a placebo too.

If a pro says to us that you are doing "x" very badly, you will think of that and play badly becaise you are thinking of that badness, but of the same pro says that you are doing "y and z" really well, you will feel better and play better. If the mindset is what gives you confidence then run with it.

In saying that, the best thing to get confidence is to make sure you have a solid, repeatable swing where you know you can control the club face with a good swing.

I am sure this has been answered before, but what do you do first? get lessons to get a good repeatable swing to be fitted to, or get fitted to a swing that will become your repeatable swing after your lessons?

I tend to agree with the general sentiments which 2Putts is explaining.

For a driver you will always have one type of swing - from a tee box that is flat and you try and swing the thing hard. That can be fitted to.

But, for generally most other irons, you're not on a level surface, sometimes you have to swing hard, sometimes you have to swing softer, sometimes you need to hit all sorts of different shots, but the fitting is for one type of full swing from a level surface.

Granted, there is absolutely a place for well fitted irons to be within a close range to a stock shot, and I think it is really pleasing for 76@dorset to gain that much extra confidence from being fitted from a professional. And it makes me wonder if there are other ways for someone to gain extra confidence over the ball with something of a placebo too.

If a pro says to us that you are doing "x" very badly, you will think of that and play badly becaise you are thinking of that badness, but of the same pro says that you are doing "y and z" really well, you will feel better and play better. If the mindset is what gives you confidence then run with it.

In saying that, the best thing to get confidence is to make sure you have a solid, repeatable swing where you know you can control the club face with a good swing.

I am sure this has been answered before, but what do you do first? get lessons to get a good repeatable swing to be fitted to, or get fitted to a swing that will become your repeatable swing after your lessons?

I have good hand eye co-ordination so I can get good results with any clubs, but for most of my golfing life I was using clubs that were too upright.

What this meant is that, to get good outcomes, I would hold my hands open at impact which meant I did not release the club properly. If I didn't do that, I would dig the heel in and hook it. This created a flaw in my swing that meant I relied in timing to get good outcomes. It's impossible to have a repeatable swing that relies on timing, hence the need for clubs with better lie angles.

I could get decent results a lot of the time by using clubs that were too upright, but I could not improve my consistency.

This might only be of importance to someone who has decent fundamentals already, but I am a firm believer that you can only improve so much when using the incorrect tools.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that fittings are a silver bullet. But if you have the money to spend on something that makes an extremely difficult game a little bit easier, for me it's worth it.

Granted, there is absolutely a place for well fitted irons to be within a close range to a stock shot, and I think it is really pleasing for 76@dorset to gain that much extra confidence from being fitted from a professional.

Ok ok – because you twisted my arm, and I am so mysterious that I like to contravene my earlier “I’m mysterious like that comment”

Jon @ TPG fitted me many years ago and based on my swing speed and tempo, I was swinging and playing well enough to use the Mizuno MP 52s with a TT Dynamic Gold R300 shaft. Was very happy with his level of service and professionalism.

Just needed to adjust the lie angle 2deg flatter to allow for my shallower swing-plane. Handicap was dropped from about 20/21 and has been bouncing between 16-19 over the last couple of years.

FastForward 5 years later and after suffering a back injury, my swing speed had deteriorated and subsequently lost distance right through the bag.

There were some days when everything clicked and still managed to score well despite not getting my 6i past 100m (yes true story)

Unfortunately for Jon, he is located on the wrong side of town for me, and this time I caved in to having a chat to my local pro around testing some clubs and shafts.

The challenge was laid that if I can get my 6i close to 140m with manageable distance gaps between clubs, then I would buy a set – caveat being that it had to be the right price too!

Got fitted again using the Mizuno fitting system at the range at Sunshine GC trying out a bunch of different head and shaft combinations.

Eventually settled on the Mizuno JPX 900 Hot metal irons with a C taper Lite shaft, which was about 25gm lighter than my previous DG R300.

Proud to say that the total travel distance for my 6i is around 155m-160m and that I am now hitting more greens in reg.

Handicap is also at the lowest point ever of 12.5, no lessons (bar the one that screwed with my head about 6 years ago) and still chopping up the rest of the game.

Biggest difference now is the ability to pick the right tool for the shot at hand instead of grabbing my hybrid for any approach shot above 100m and manufacturing a shot with my 160m club.

I went in without any preconceived thoughts on what driver I wanted to walk away with. That said, I thought I would like the Cally XR16.

Tried Calley XR16, Ping G30, Mizzy JPX900 (horrible sounding club and shite numbers anyway), Cobra F7+ and TM M1 & M2. Turns out with my swing I had a slightly downward swing at impact and was getting a lot of spin with most clubs. The coach who I have seen before and was doing the fitting gave me a few pointers and we got it almost neutral and at a point where I was still comfortable swinging. Got it down to the G30 and the F7+......in the end the spin numbers and the sound/feel of the F7+ was easily the winner.

Turns out it was cheapest of all the drivers that I tried. Like I said I am 100% happy with the process and the club that I have ended up with. Feel confident when I stand over the drive and I know that I can either swing within myself or give it a good rip with good results. If it is a bad drive, I also know it was me and not the club.